Chapter 844： Take control of the future

Easter has just passed, because too busy, Eric did not return to New York to accompany the children to Easter, but promised that women will return to East Hampton before April 1o, the two little guys will be four years old.

In a restaurant in Firefly Studios, on Monday, Eric and Kasenberg had breakfast together and discussed the topic of three recent animated films in the summer.

"Lion King 2" is a film that was simultaneously established with Paramount's "The Legend of the Wind" last year. Although it has been three years, the influence of "The Lion King" is still there. Roger Ailes used it. After three years of sculpting this film, the quality of the animation must not be too inferior to the first one. The only thing we can do is to create obstacles for Paramount in publicity."

Kasenberg introduced the recent situation, took a sip of juice, and continued: "I have already made several phone calls with Mr. Murdoch. During the next two months of promotion, Firefly's ab network, Disney Channel If you don’t see any trailer advertisements for "Lion King 2" on all TV platforms, the audience will only see the information of "Nemo" and "Ice Age". On the other side of News Corp., Fox TV and Fox Family Channel, etc. The same is true for the platform. We will also compete for the trailers of the nb and bs TV networks as much as possible. According to the propaganda department, when all these deployments are implemented, Paramount’s budget can only reach half of the usual budget. Effect."

Commercial competition has never been warm and tender. During the promotion of the Titanic at the end of last year, Viacom’s MTV TV, which is aimed at young viewers, refused to launch a trailer for the Titanic on the grounds of tight advertising. As the holistic approach becomes more common, the importance of film propaganda to the box office becomes more apparent, as evidenced by the increasing proportion of the film's promotional budget in total investment costs.

This time, whether it is the counterattack of Viacom's behavior a few months ago, or because of the need for competition, it is necessary to completely block the "Lion King 2" in the firefly system.

At this time, Viacom Group has only one MTV TV station. The number of users and the Disney Channel is not an order of magnitude. Since the Internet has only just begun in recent years, the current mainstream methods of film promotion are still TV trailers, paper media advertisements, and posters in a large number of public advertisements. The wide-ranging role of TV trailers is undoubtedly the most important. This is especially true for animated films. After all, the part of the animated film audience who is quite large will not read newspapers or magazines.

The joint blockade of ab TV network and fo TV network will mean that "Lion King 2" has lost at least half of the TV advertising platform in North America. Viacom's own TV resources are quite limited, and the advertising space is obtained on these external platforms. With the same competition between Firefly and Fox, Paramount Pictures must pay a higher price for the promotion of "Lion King 2", and the final marketing result will be far from "Nemo" and Compared to "Looking for Nemo".

Eric had already finished the breakfast in front of him, sipping a cup of hot milk slowly, listening to Kasenberg, and asked: "You have considered, Viacom may provoke "Lion King 2" in the media. Is it blocked?"

"Of course, the method of coping is very simple. Unless necessary, we will try to ignore it as much as possible. This will also prevent Paramount from using this topic for speculation. This matter was discussed at last week's meeting. If Viacom expresses similar remarks in the media, no part of the firefly will respond publicly. Moreover, we have no irregularities in doing so. If someone raises a question, we can produce enough evidence. Prove that all the advertising time of our TV station has been sold out," Kasenberg's staller, showing some smashed Totoro laughter, also made a very vivid metaphor: "If there is no opponent to pick up, one is facing People who punch in the air will only make people feel funny."

Eric also laughed and said: "I guess after this incident, Lei Shidong will definitely make up his mind to bbsp again; "General Electric will not sell nb in recent years, as for bs, according to its current market value, dimension Yacom now wants to buy more than $100 million. In the case that the public television network continues to be affected by the cable TV market share, let alone o billion dollars, even if the price is reduced by half, I feel that it is worthless. When we acquired the shares of the Metropolitan/ab and ae TV networks, it is definitely not worthwhile now. ”

Eric said: "But Lei Shidong certainly won't think so. His concept is still in the period when the public television network was the most prosperous."

In memory, Viacom had spent a total of 4.6 billion US dollars in order to annex the bs TV network. However, after the business was reached, the bs began to fall into a long-term loss. Many years later, in order to avoid being dragged down by the bs TV network, Viacom had to separate bs from its lucrative cable TV business such as mtv.

Lei Shidong is a very enterprising person, and this is beyond doubt. However, perhaps due to the limitations of the times, his vision has always been worse. Although the Viacom exhibition has become more and more huge in the integration tide of the media group, it has proved afterwards that it is against the Baishida videotape. The acquisition of chain stores, or the acquisition of bs television network, is a very unsuccessful business. After the new century, Viacom gradually degenerated from the first-line media giant to the second-line media group.

The two then talked about the work of several other films in the summer file. At the end, Kasenberger hesitated, still said: "Eric, about the recent digital music exercise, Barry Weiss and me After talking about it, he felt very uneasy. I also think that your digital marketing strategy for Firefly Records is too radical."

Barry Weiss was a senior official who was fired from the music company of Sony Records, a subsidiary of Sony Records. He is currently the president of Firefly Records.

In the past two years, the backstreet boys team that Barry Weiss personally created has also become one of the top pop singers, and last year created the first album with a global sales volume of over 2ooo.

In addition to the pillars of the Backstreet Boys, other singers of Firefly Records rely on the rich media resources of the Firefly Group, and the exhibition is quite stable. Christa, Britney, Justin Timberlake and other former mm members, after several years of training, last year, 6 continued to test the water single, and got a good market feedback, the firefly record has started to tailor for them The plan to create an album.

Eric is therefore very pleased with Barry Weiss's success in the last two years.

At this point, I heard Kasenberg's retelling, Eric did not feel surprised, just said: "Jeffrey, you should have seen the digital scheme I gave to the firefly record?"

Kasenberg nodded and said: "It feels like a staged line of film. Three months of physical record line cycle, three months later, I went to the Yahoo Music Store for digital albums. The three-month window period though It's shorter, but it's acceptable. But then, after six months, the album will be split into singles for separate sales, Barry said, which is the biggest impact on record sales."

For many albums, unless it is a **** fan, most people will only like one or two of the best songs.

In fact, this is also the record company to deliberately save resources and pursue profit maximization. It is easier to make a mediocre song than to create a classic music, and it can also pay less capital and energy. If you split the record, it will directly lead to a large number of mediocre songs, which will definitely threaten the record company's survival for many years.

"Jeffrey, I don't mention the pros and cons of this plan for the time being," Eric said, taking out a fire1yer that he often carried recently from his pocket and said, "You must know this player very well, so Let's make a hypothesis. If this player is completely developed by your own company, and you don't have any interest in the record industry, what do you do to promote this machine as much as possible?"

In recent days, Kasenberg has also realized that fire1yer has the potential to replace the traditional portable music player market.

In the current portable music player market, Sony's a1kman still dominates the mainstream, with annual sales of around 15 million units. Other d players, md players and other devices, sales figures are probably on the order of magnitude. In other words, the annual market capacity of portable music players is around oo 10,000 units. If you can fully occupy this market, according to the net profit margin of about 15% of electronic equipment, the net profit of fire1yer, which is priced at $299, is about $45. The sales of oo million units a year will bring a net profit of 1.35 billion US dollars, which is enough to squeeze into the top 100 global corporate profit list.

Kasenberg is also not a person with a particularly strong sense of morality. In the case of empathy, considering the terrorist business opportunities contained in this player, he will naturally choose the promotion method that is most beneficial to him at all costs. Even secretly condone the spread of online pirated music, as to the record company's life and death, what has to do with him.

According to this line of thinking, if he is now responsible for the firefly electronics company, then he will not hesitate to completely abandon the interests of the firefly record, although the firefly record has been good in recent years, but its annual profit for the group is still Less than $100 million, even if it reaches the scale of the top five record companies, it is still not enough to compare the profits that fire1yer might create. After all, the output value of the music industry is far from being comparable to movies. None of the world's top five record companies can earn 100 million in annual profits.

After working together for so long, Eric knew Kasenberg's personality very well. After seeing his brief thoughts, he just licked his mouth and did not speak. Eric could roughly guess what he was thinking and said: "There is no shortage of smart people in the world. The mp3 audio format was initially launched five years ago. During this five-year period, I can safely guess that traditional music equipment manufacturers must have produced a similar fire1yer player. The idea. However, in order to protect their own existing player products and the huge vested interests of peripheral industries such as d and tape, they will definitely instinctively stop such projects. But this result is not the worst, just like I just Assume that if similar player products are produced by electronics manufacturers that are not associated with the record industry, in order to gain more benefits, they will certainly ignore the interests of the record companies as much as possible, not to mention the fees as I do now. I’m trying to pull in the record companies. They just need a grandiose excuse to copy music from the genuine d than the player. Then you can build and promote this product. As for where the user gets the music, do you think they care?"

"Then you," Kasenberg said suddenly. "Eric, do you care?"

Eric smiled and leaned back on the back of the chair and said honestly: "No, I don't care."

Kasenberg said: "Then, why are you still doing this?"

Eric thought for a moment and said, "Because I want to get the initiative, I just want to be the rule maker. I don't want to be self-sufficient, waiting to be ruled by others, or even being eliminated. So, Jeffrey, if If you pay more attention to Yahoo!, you should now, based on the mp3 audio format, Yahoo has already opened the mp4 video format. The IT industry will follow the Moore's Law, and it will take less than ten years for Hollywood to face it. A situation similar to the record industry. At that time, the easiest way to survive better was to become the rule maker, rather than trying to blame others or blindly resist emerging technologies."

Kasenberg has always admired his young boss's excellent vision in the film industry and investment, but he always feels that Eric's character lacks the control desire of a superior, even in many things. Too mild and lacking in aggression.

But now, in the small restaurant of Firefly Studios, Kasenberg is suddenly showing that Eric’s mind is much bigger than him. He not only has the present, but even plans to control the future.

Kasenberg even realized that maybe he was just a piece of Eric's ambitious layout for the future. After all, the piece could not see the entire board layout. It could only observe everything in its own planned route area. And self-righteously pointed to the chess player some time.

Are you willing to be a pawn?

Kasenberg couldn't help but ask himself, but he quickly gave an answer, why not?

How many people in this world dare to say that they are not chess pieces? But there are too many people, maybe for a lifetime, there is no chance to connect to the chess player. Now, not only does he have such an opportunity, he can even consciously create a future together with a chess player, which is much more fortunate than those who have lived for a lifetime but do not know what to do.

"Eric, my relationship with Geffen is good, maybe, I can call and invite him to participate in the fire1yer conference in San Francisco on April 2, what do you think?"

David Geffen's record company used to be a very important branch of Warner Music Group, and its music copyright is almost equal to Firefly Records. Kasenberg and David Geffen have always been very good friends. When David Geffen was just out of Time Warner, Kasenberg also suggested that Eric buy David Geffen’s record company, just Eric did not agree.

Eric didn't know what happened to Kasenberg's state in such a short period of time, but he was willing to take the initiative to match the bridge, and Eric would naturally not refuse.

"Of course, if he wants, um, by then, everyone can get together."

After breakfast was finished, I chatted a few words. Kasenberg then went to the Burbank headquarters to attend the weekly meeting, and the two separated.

Eric’s work schedule today is also very busy.

In the morning, I will review the sample of Jurassic Park 3 just after rough cut, and discuss the next post-effect work with director Joe Zhuangston and the digital field post-team. At noon, Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay were invited to dinner to discuss the "After Heaven" project in the disaster film series. After all, this project can't be dragged on. Eric doesn't plan to personally guide, and the company can't wait all the time. Just after Michael Bay finished "Jesus 2", he didn't want to shoot "Jesus 3" but wanted Try the special effects theme, Jerry Bruckheimer proposed to hand over "the day after tomorrow" to Michael Bay. In the afternoon, I also rushed to the Fox studio to participate in the final round of audition of the heroine of "The End of the World". Eric had no interest in appreciating and even hunting beautiful women. He wanted a woman now, and he didn't need to be so complicated. Routine. But since he took the initiative to take the errand, he also had to symbolically reveal the following.

Since the box office results of "Jurassic Park 2" are almost equal to the first one, although the option contract was signed in advance, Joe Zhuangston still proposed to get more rewards in Jurassic Park 3. It took the three parties to reach an agreement in the negotiations. The third part of the script writing and team formation was not as smooth as the second one. Therefore, the two-year production cycle was extended to two and a half years. Jurassic Park 3 can only miss the summer file and was scheduled for the Christmas season at the end of the year.

"Jurassic Park 3" was just finished on the eve of Oscar. Jerry Bruckheimer still worked as a producer. The original was about noon, but in order to understand the special effects production process, Michael Bay followed Jerry in the morning. · Brookhamer came to Firefly Studios to watch the post-production discussion of Jurassic Park 3. Everyone's success will not be a fluke. Eric is very satisfied with Michael Beck's attitude. After completing the morning work, he has already hesitated and decided to hand him the "After the Day" to make it. At noon everyone is at the restaurant. In it, I simply discussed the production plan of "The Day After". (To be continued.) 8